The Snowman by Jo Nesbø, Don Bartlett Page A

and hard. Metal. A metal ring. Sylvie’s gaze scoured around for what she had kicked. And there on the snowy bank she saw it. It had eyes, feathers and a pale red cockscomb. She felt her terror mounting again. It was a severed chicken’s head. Not one of the heads she had just cut off, but one of the ones Rolf used. As bait. After writing to the local council that a fox had killed sixteen chickens last year, they had been given permission to set a limited number of fox traps – so-called swan necks – at a certain radius around the farm, well off the beaten track. The best place to hide traps was underwater with the bait sticking up. After the fox had taken the bait, the trap snapped shut, breaking the neck of the animal and killing it instantly. At least in theory. She felt with her hand. When they had bought the traps at Jaktdepotet in Drammen, they had said the springs were so strong that the jaws could break the leg of an adult, but she couldn’t feel any pain in her frozen foot. Her fingers found the thin steel wire attached to the swan neck. She wouldn’t be able to force open the trap without the lever, which was in the farm tool shed, and anyway they usually tied the swan neck to a tree with steel wire so that a half-dead fox, or anything else, would not be able to run off with the expensive equipment. Her hand traced the wire through the water and up onto the bank. There was the metal sign bearing their names, as per regulations.
    She stiffened. Wasn’t that a twig she heard breaking in the distance? She felt her heart pounding again as she stared into the dense murk.
    Numb fingers followed the wire through the snow as she crawled up onto the bank of the stream. The wire was fastened around the trunk of a solid young birch tree. She searched for and found the knot under the snow. The metal had frozen into a stiff, unyielding lump. She had to open it, had to get away.
    Another twig cracked. Closer this time.
    She leaned against the trunk, on the opposite side to where she had heard the sound. Told herself not to panic, that the knot would come loose after she had yanked at it for a while, that her leg was intact, that the sounds she heard coming closer were made by a deer. She tried pulling at one end of the knot and didn’t feel the pain when a fingernail broke down the middle. But it was no use. She bent over and her teeth crunched as she bit into the steel. Shit! She could hear light, quiet footsteps in the snow and held her breath. The steps paused somewhere on the other side of the tree. She might have been imagining things, but she thought she could hear it scenting the air, inhaling the smell. She sat utterly motionless. Then it began to move again. The sounds were softer. It was going away.
    She took a deep, quivering breath. Now she would have to free herself. Her clothes were soaked and she would certainly freeze to death at night if no one found her. At that moment she remembered. The hatchet! She had forgotten the hatchet. The wire was thin. Put it on a stone, a couple of well-aimed blows and she would be free. The hatchet must have fallen in the stream. She crawled back into the black water, put her hands down and searched the stony bottom.
    Nothing.
    In despair, she sank to her knees, scanning the snow on both banks. And then she caught sight of the blade poking up out of the water two metres in front of her. And already she knew, before she felt the wire jerk, before she lay down flat in the water with the melted snow gurgling over her, so cold that she thought her heart would stop, stretching like a desperate beggar for the hatchet, already she knew that it was half a metre too far. Her fingers curled around air fifty centimetres from the handle. Tears came, but she forced them back; she could cry afterwards.
    ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’
    She had neither seen nor heard a thing. But in front of her sat a figure, crouched down. It . Sylvia scrambled back, but the figure followed with